SWAMPSCOTT — Basketball is a game of runs. During Friday night’s Northeastern Conference game at Swampscott, the Classical girls basketball team had the last one.
Jean Gupton-Morrison grabbed an offensive rebound in the post and scored the two winning points to lift the Rams to a 44-43 win at Dick Lynch Gymnasium. The Rams scored six of the final seven points to overcome a five-point deficit entering the fourth quarter.
Gupton-Morrison led the comeback, scoring six of her 16 points in the final frame. She also finished the game with 15 rebounds and four steals. Fellow seniors Amber Crayton and Kiara Edmonds added 12 and 11 points, respectively.
“I’m so proud of our kids for just battling back,” Classical coach Tom Sawyer said. “We tell them all the time that it’s nice to have scouting reports and Xs and Os, but it’s all about players making plays. We had players make plays at the end of the game.”
The Rams were forced to climb out of a hole right off the bat as Niya Morgen knocked down her first two shots, accounting for five of Swampscott’s eight straight points to open the game. Classical immediately responded with its own 10-0 run and ended the opening quarter with a two-point lead. Crayton’s finish at the basket marked the Rams’ first two points before five straight from Gupton-Morrison and three from Edmonds.
The Rams scored 10 of the first 13 points in the second quarter — including a span of six straight that Sajada Dean capped with a steal and basket — and finished the half with a 22-16 advantage. Morgen’s straight-on triple helped the Big Blue temporarily close the gap to four in the final minute of the second, good for three of her game-high 20 points.
Swampscott controlled the third quarter to the tune of a 16-9 scoring advantage. Chloe Rakauskas scored seven of her team’s first eight points in that frame to bring the Big Blue within one at 25-24. Morgen netted a three to give the home team a 29-27 lead before back-to-back baskets countered Classical’s response — a Gupton-Morrison score inside — and created a five-point game after three quarters.
“It was a great game and our young team played very hard,” said Pat Quagrello, Swampscott’s acting head coach while Katelyn Leonard is on maternity leave. “We had a lot of momentum in the third quarter. We were making our shots, moving the ball around and we got some good looks. But give credit to Lynn Classical; they’re well coached and finished at the very end.”
Classical scored eight straight points to open the fourth to take a 38-34 lead, but Morgen and Brooke Matela combined for the next five to give Swampscott a 41-38 edge. Ella Sprague scored off a rebound to put Swampscott ahead with 16.4 seconds to play, but it was not enough as Gupton-Morrison scored less than ten ticks later for the winning basket.
“They hit some early shots and they hit some late shots. Fortunately, we hit one more in the end,” said Sawyer, whose team also benefited from the hustle of freshman Ava Thurman, who finished with a fourth-quarter three and a rebound in the game. “I’ve got four seniors on the floor most of the time, so they want to win. They do whatever it takes.”
